PC Law & Credit control

How do we set credit limits in PC Law?With this, I mean how can I control billing so that it does not exceed the credit limit set but can be overridden by mutual concent?

Many thanks.

There are a few suggestions I could make to help you determine this information.

1)  You could set the "quote" limit so that at the time of billing the system will produce a warning the invoice exceeds the quoted amount (or credit limit amount).

2) You could use the Partner Alert report and find all matters with an AR balance greater than a certain amount. However this method is more global and will give you ALL matters with a balance >amount.

Does anyone know, how I can set credit control wherein there can be warning at time sheet entry or while billing if the current outstanding crosses the credit limit set. Many thanks.

Hi Diago:

Under System Settings>Other tab under "Compare Amount Quoted Against" select/deselect Fees/Disbs depending on whether you want to compare both Fees and Disbs or either (unbilled & billed) against Amt Quoted.

Then set your quoted types under Billing Tab of Matter Manager. In the Amount box type the monetary value. Whenever entering Time/Fees &/or Costs (depending on the selections under System Settings), PCLaw issues a warning  if the entry will exceed the value set provided the quoted type selected was "Estimate" or "Target WIP". One thing to be careful with is that for Disbs it will only work if all your disbs are from Office A/c (i.e. vide A/P/Exps Recovery/Office Chq) and not from Trust funds for the matter. This is because PCLaw won't pick up "Compare Amt Quoted Against.." if you pay Disbs from Trust Accounts for the matter.

Furthermore I presume you want more - e.g.if the client has not paid a bill (i.e. has an A/R) you want PCLaw to warn you at data entry if the A/R has exceeded a particular user defined limit. I think playing around with the above will get you closest to your credit control thing.

Hassan

Hi Hassan,Thanks for the reply. However I feel credit control will loose meaning if PC Law does not consider taking A/R into consideration while issuing the credit exceeded warning. For example, while entering time/fees, it will consider only WIP amt+entered time/fees against Estimate / Target quoted amount but will not consider A/R amount. Moreover, we have to set quoted amount in each and every matter even though one client can have several matters. It should be done on client level rather then matter level. Above type of calculation is totally wrong from accounting perspective and PC Law has to do some drastic changes to have a world class credit control module in place. Many thanks.

Hi Diago

I undersatnd your point and agree with your views. However, the above is not intended to be a credit control feature - rather a cost control feature which flags you at data entry if your costing (billed & unbilled fees/disbs) exceeds the quote/estimate defined. It does not take into account credits received or A/R and you can to do it at matter level although you can also define at client level using Matter Bill settings.

The closest you can get is to check off "Display Credit Hold Warning when entering Charges" under Settings tab of Matter Manager. Again you would have to do it for each matter individually. So you would have to typically review all your matters for A/R / WIP exceeded your desired limits and then go and enable credit hold warning for each matter. PCLaw would then warn you whenever entering Time/Fees or costs that this matter is on credit hold. When you receive a payment either in Office or Trust PCLaw will ask if you would like to clear the credit hold.

Hassan

Does anyone know if there is any improvements in credit control in PC Law version 10 ? Many Thanks

Here is a link to some of the new features:

http://www.lexisnexis.com/law-firms/practice-management/specialized-law/pclaw.aspx?content=enhancements 

I do not see anything for credit control.  The only other suggestion that I have is to include all of this informatin on the pre-bill so that upon review you know where you stand. I agree may be too late...but if it is always on the pre-bill perhaps the timekeepers will be proactive and have something that reminds them each billing cycle to keep the credit control in mind as they work.

Matt